Revenue collection in November grew by 17 per cent compared to last year to touch Rs334 billion, according to Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Shabbar Zaidi in a late afternoon tweet after monthly figures had been compiled. The figure is still short by Rs48bn from the November target, causing the overall revenue shortfall this fiscal year to climb to Rs211bn.
Collection in the period July to November hovered around Rs1.618 trillion provisionally where the target for the period is Rs1.830tr. The growing shortfalls are fuelling concern within certain sections of the business community that the government could resort to further taxation measures, a mini-budget, in order to bridge the shortfalls before the end of fiscal year. The government acceded to a very challenging revenue target of Rs5.5tr in the last budget, up from Rs3.829tr collected last year.
Income tax collection has been recorded at Rs573bn provisionally, against a target of Rs627bn, showing a shortfall of Rs54bn. Thus far reports say the FBR has received 1.59 million income tax returns, far higher than the same period last year, but they suggest another million people who filed returns last year have still to file this year. As a result, the FBR announced an extension in the return filing deadline to Dec 15.
